By Xiao Shu (笑蜀)
EO Online
Translated by Laura Lin and Zhu Na
Original article: [Chinese]
"The father is his son's pass, the son is his father's epitaph" (爹是兒的通行證，兒是爹的墓志銘) - This may sound like some ancient Chinese saying, but it's actually a popular phrase that's been bouncing around China's microblogs in recent weeks in response to the latest in a spate of incidents involving the wayward sons of powerful families.
This one involved the 15-year-old son of a famous military singer who was accused of beating a couple after a traffic incident involving the unregistered BMW that he was driving.
Time and time again the children of the powerful have been exposed aggressively flaunting their wealth and connections.
Although it's not so unusual for a young person to be aggressive and act on impulse, their arrogance in the aftermath of the incident is unusual and this has caused people to link his behaviour to his special family background.
The force of public opinion in relation to this case weas overwhelming, the authorities had no choice but to strictly deal with the teenager, sentencing him to one year in a detention facility for young offenders.
The social position of the father of this boy, not only contributed to the child's arrogance, it also meant that the two were held up to higher moral standards in the wake of the incident.
Though the punishment has a legal basis, it is nonetheless close to the most severe that can be handed down, and for a 15-year-old, perhaps it went a little too far.
The Li Shuangjing case I've just described above pales in comparison to the exploits of a group of young men who have come to be known as the "Four Scions of Beijing" (京城四少).
One of them, the gun-toting Wang Shuo (王爍), was caught in a similar fit of pique while out driving in Beijing's Wangfujing late last year. He slammed his car into the side of an Audi being driven by another of the "four scions", causing it to burst into flames and threatening his rival with a pistol.
Where does this guy get the gall to act like this?
It turns out that he also comes from a wealthy family: his father is a wealthy businessman, and his stepmother is an actress.
The fact that the children of wealthy families continously cause trouble is bad enough, for it to repeatedly take place in the capital is really just rubbing it in our faces.
It appears that these young men are not afraid of anything because they know someone has their back.
But people are starting to get fed up and are beginning to ask whether it's merely because of their family background that these men are so sure that they won't get into trouble, or is there some other force that they think protects them?
No matter how prominent a single family is, its power is still limited and it's impossible for the influence and power of any single family to exceed that of the state.
Under normal circumstances, it's the machinery of state power, that is law enforcement, that is a country's most powerful force.
If this is exercised impartially, the arrogance of the privileged will be restrained within legal limits. They won't dare to challenge the law due to the risk of being punished.
They know that if they play with fire they'll get burnt.
However, in both the cases I've outlined above, it's obvious that these young men don't respect or fear the state.
From their point of view, it's as if the state doesn't even exist, and it's a dog eat dog world where the law of the jungle applies - and they act accordingly.
Look at how calm Wang Shuo was when he commited his crime and also afterwards: he calmly backed his car into his rival's, he calmly told "his people" to hide the gun, he arranged for the footage from the street surveillance camera to be erased and after all this was done, he calmly surrendered himself to the police.
All this compsure reveals his conspicuous self-confidence.
What kind of self-confidence it this?
It's the kind that says, "I can take care of everything."
There's also no doubt this self-confidence is based on his complete disrespect for the institutions of the state.
His composure reveals the kind of self-confidence that comes from believing that nobody can touch you, that no matter how powerful someone is, I'm even more powerful then them and I can take care of any problem that might arise.
This kind of self-confidence is an open insult to the state.
We need to ask what is the real source of this confidence.
Are there any grounds for this self-confidence? Of course there is, the things they experience in their daily life.
From their experience of life, they've learned that there is a power that holds more sway than the state's system of justice. This sense of having a power that exceeds the bounds of the state has gradually caused them to view the state with disdain.
Of course, this extraordinary strength cannot come from a single family, but should come from the combined force of a lot of these wealthy families. In other words, the force comes from the whole privileged class.
It is not difficult to understand the public anger with such a situation. After all, if you trace it to its root, this anger grows out of a deep fear. Because if these youngsters look down on the powerful state machine, how will they treat ordinary people?
Who is there in this world that can resist their brutality? Who will feel safe taking them on?
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